2022 MA Daytona 200

Social media can be a rough place sometimes...

 

That is the most brilliant meme I've seen in awhile. I'm still laughing over here.

 

thaaaaaaaat was me. i was still paying attention to the bike and assessing crash damage when i remounted (instead of paying attention to where i was on-track like i should've been) and i thought the corner worker pointed me the way to go, so that way i went. then i promptly shit my pants when i saw a bike coming directly at me. pretty embarrassed.

calm down. nobody goes reverse-track on purpose.... nobody. i don't blame the corner worker at all, but you can see him point the way i went and i misinterpreted him. i got dq'ed for it and i'll be "that guy" for a solid while.

 

That one is pretty good

 

Way to accept responsibility, although you had some corner worker’s “help”. Glad nobody was hurt. Onward and upwards.

 

In your defense I did feel the corner worker could have provided a little more guidance to a guy who just fell down and potentially hit his head

 

It would be much easier to argue if you made a bunch of excuses, said it was no big deal, and made sure it was someone else’s fault. Owning up to it is no fun for internet debates!

Hope you and the bike are okay!

 

Glad you saw it in time. You scared the shit out of all of us watching at my shop

 

haha, well thanks for the support guys. last few days i've wanted to just crawl into a hole and be forgotten. i'll be back at atlanta and will try to prove i'm not actually a moron.

 

Thanks! It was a crazy weekend....

Thursday we were first ones on track. It was a little green, but otherwise ok. I think alot of people underestimate Daytona because of the long straights- it's still a somewhat tricky place, but the fast guys always figure it out no matter what. Anyway I knew we had something for them after that first practice.

Then the rains came (as expected) and that threw everyone for a loop. Q1 was outright cancelled, Q2 was run on Friday morning. We were the first ones out again and after running the jet dryer for an hour or so, the track was semi-dry. The banking was damp, you could run flat out, but couldn't use the high line because of the paint. In fact you couldn't touch a painted line anywhere. There was wet spots in critical areas- like braking for T1, apex of the esses, turn in point and exit line on the horseshoe, etc. It was only a 20 min session- maybe 10 laps. I tried to adjust my lines in certain corners and maximize the dry areas (dogleg, T6 Barrel turn) but I didn't improve my times. The fast guys were impressive adjusting their lines and missing those spots and breaking the 2:00 mark!

Race 1 we had pretty good conditions- Probably the best of the weekend. I got a decent launch, but wasn't aggressive enough in turn 1-2 so I lost some of those spots. I got pissed at myself, I tried to use a double draft to squeeze by 3 people going into the chicane and it didn't work out- I had to release the brake and run straight. I made another mistake by not going straight through the gap in the hay bales and just picking up from last place- instead I went through the grass and by the time I re-entered the track, I was literally 1/2 mile behind last place. I just put my head down and hit my marks, caught and passed maybe 8 people and finished 25th.

Race 2 was delayed so many times I lost count, but by the time we started it was windy and getting chilly- the sun was off the track and I guess that made a difference- I don't know what was going on, I only know the bike didn't feel good. As soon as I sat on the bike I felt something was wrong- I thought the steering damper had been turned all the way hard or something. On track, the front felt very strange, especially mid corner. With 5 laps there's really not much time to dwell on it, so I just put it out of my mind and rode. Didn't go as fast as Friday, but my first lap was better which put me in a position to make more passes. I passed at least 8 people. Again, need to work on my aggression in the opening corner- if I would have gotten away with the guys that were faster than me in Qualifying.....well, you know the rest. Woulda Coulda Shoulda.

When I pulled the bike out of the trailer last night, the front tire was totally flat- as in almost off the rim. I've never had that happen before- so I'm not sure what caused it, some kind of leak in the stem or a puncture? So possibly our pressures were off in the front. Of course I check them pre race but with all of the warm up laps, red flags, etc. that could have contributed to the strange feeling. That plus whatever was in the chicane which made it slippery.

My bike ran great, this is the same engine that I've been running since Atlanta 2020 with nothing more than oil changes. We spent some time on it before this race with new throttle bodies and some more tuning. Got alot of compliments on my engine (Thanks Sam McDonald!) but at the end of the day, we're smack in the middle of speed trap speeds- 145.8. Slowest was 141 and the top 10 are all over 150 with Jody Barry's Aprilia clocking the top spot at 157! Daytona is definitely a HP track, but the exit corners are even more critical and that is something forgotten it seems.

Looking forward to Road Altanta!

 

Definitely appreciate the volunteers that do corner working, but in Chris's defense, the corner worker did point in the direction of counter-race for him. I am not sure why he did that. Props to Chris not blaming him, but I can see why he went the direction he did. Instinct on both sides should be to point in the direction you want the rider to go, and the rider to then follow that, albeit not totally blindly.

 

Gino, one thing to check: make sure the o ring in the valve stem cap is not missing.

 

He slid a good way. Maybe the CW hadnt experienced a racer pumped up on adrenaline ready to get back going.
Last year I saw a very experienced racer trying to go counter direction on pit exit on a hot track... the CW had to fight to get the bike from the rider & that was a mechanical issue.
The other takeaway... a couple racers suffered DQs cutting thru the pits from the bus stop instead of continuing down the apron

 

I was telling the story of Aaron Slight pushing his Ducati at full sprint all the way around the track from the chicane to pit lane back in the day... I thought it was practice but it may have been a Q or even the race... I mentioned him not knowing the access roads but he probably knew better than me about leaving the “track” and having laps canceled...

Edit:
How fitting for the thread... I looked it up finally... he was on a Ducati then not a Honda... figures...

 

Not giving you shit about it since you owned up to it.
But as far the no one goes reverse track on purpose part that's unfortunately not true. there are some dumb people and bad decision makers that have done that very thing just because they want to. And it's scary..

 

Pretty sure I've seen in in the Moto3/2/GP series since I started following road racing I'm 2106. Dont remember which one. Rider was having trouble starting the bike and decided to use the hill the help build momentum. That put him against traffic. Shit happens, he realized it and GTFO out dodge.

 

Even though rider was approaching the track counter direction, it never appeared to me that he was actively trying to regain going on track counter race. I suppose he could have, but honestly it didn’t look as bad to me as some seem to think it was. How empowered is a random CW at holding a racer back and performing or making the rider perform a more comprehensive safety check both on machine and rider gear?